This invention relates to apparatuses and methods for the wireless monitoring, identification and control of environmental and chromatographic apparatuses and synthetic chemistry.
Wireless communication for the purpose of monitoring, identifying and controlling devices and apparatus are known. For example RFID devices and Bluetooth devices are in widespread use to identify devices and transfer information to a receiver.
One prior art apparatus and method for identifying and providing information about a chromatographic column to a receiver is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,893 to Ozawa, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,971,506 to Hassinen and U.S. Pat. No. 6,458,273 to Krakover. U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,893 discloses a semi-conductor having a non-volitile memory embedded within it and storing information such as changes in the specification of the column, mixing ratios of eluent flow rate, theoretical plates and other information. The semi-conductor device is used for wireless communication to permit a data processor to receive the information stored in the semi-conductor U.S. Pat. No. 6,971,506 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,458,273 disclose a test tube carrier with an RFID tag on test tubes and a micro titer plate that is bar coded.
However, prior art wireless identification and communication techniques have not satisfactorily resolved many of the identification and communication problems that occur in liquid chromatography and environmental sampling.